


ghost lights (whatever it takes)

by august_embers



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Harley Keener saves the world, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity Stones, Multiple Dimensions, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Team as Family, Teenage Rebellion, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, harley is feral and you cannot change my mind, what are you talking about this is exactly how endgame went
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:46:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/august_embers/pseuds/august_embers
Summary: Up ahead, a building rises slightly higher than the ones around it, and even though there's no A to label it, Harley knows what the Avengers tower looks like.  It has become as much of a trademark to New York as the Sears building to Chicago, or the Empire State Building.  It's supposed to be a symbol that there are those stronger than the people below it, people who will step up and fight when no one else can.What a load of bullshit.Four months ago the entire universe bad been ripped in half, and the Avengers have done nothing to fix it.  They haven't eventried.Harley sets out to change that.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	ghost lights (whatever it takes)

Even though half the population is missing, New York still manages to feel overcrowded.

Harley had been out of Rose Hill exactly once, when his sophomore class had somehow progressed far enough in an academic competition over government shit that they’d been invited to Washington DC. They’d placed dead last, which had surprised no one, but Harley had been too focused on running around and seeing as much as he could before he was loaded back up on a charter bus to Tennessee to really care one way or another. 

New York is a completely different beast.

A sharp elbow slams into his side as someone hurries by, and he just barely manages to keep himself from shouting something that could probably get him killed in a place like that. Harley isn’t scared, but being stabbed isn’t part of his agenda, so he lets it go. He’s got too much to accomplish, and he doubts the shabbily dressed man who’d knocked into him really deserves to be roasted by an angry southern kid. 

Harley tucks his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie and keeps walking. Up ahead, a building rises slightly higher than the ones around it, and even though there’s no A to label it, Harley knows what the Avengers tower looks like. It has become as much of a trademark to New York as the Sears building to Chicago, or the Empire State Building. It’s supposed to be a symbol that there are those stronger than the people below it, people who will step up and fight when no one else can.

What a load of bullshit. 

Four months ago the entire universe had been ripped in half, and the Avengers have done nothing to fix it. They haven’t even _tried._

The first month had been nothing more than confusion and chaos and grief. It had taken a few days before statements were made about an alien called Thanos, magic gemstones, and the devastation that occurred when the two were combined. People started trying to record the missing, but the numbers were not in their favor and the task had largely fallen to local governments. Rose Hill only had a population of around forty thousand, and as of last week it was estimated to have dropped somewhere in the ballpark of thirteen thousand. Apparently half is relative.

Two weeks in, what was left of the world held its breath as Captain America stood in front of the press and read out the names of the fallen Avengers. Harley had sat in his living room, alone, and watched as the Captain addressed the camera with dead eyes.

“We couldn’t stop him,” he’d rasped. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

At the end of the day, though, sorry wasn’t worth anything. His grandma used to say that all the time, when Harley would throw out a half-assed apology for whatever he’d done to land himself in hot water. _Sorry won’t fix what’s broke- you’ve gotta do that part yourself._

And slowly, the world began to do just that. 

There wasn’t anything to show for those who were gone. They’d crumbled into ash and disappeared completely, like they’d never even existed in the first place. The real mess came from what was left behind- wrecked and burnt out vehicles, pets wandering in search of their owners, planes that went down when their pilots vanished. The goal may have been to wipe out half the population, but the casualties that occurred as a result pushed that ratio into much darker territory. 

The evidence of that destruction is obvious in such a large city. Harley has counted 12 boarded up shop fronts over the past four blocks, some with black scorch marks along the brick and others with signs that all say something along the lines of “condemned” or “abandoned”. He tries not to look at the few smashed cars that still sit in parking spaces along the side of the street where they must’ve been pushed to clear space for the emergency vehicles. There is trash piled everywhere, against buildings and overflowing from dumpsters, but he’s ninety percent sure that New York was like that before too, so it’s hard to judge.

Harley glances down an alley and sees a man standing on top of a dumpster. He’s spray painting a red spider onto the side of the building. He’s not the only one who had that idea- there are Spider-Man tags everywhere. Harley looks away and keeps walking. He remembers news stories coming out, counting the days that Spider-Man had been missing, before adding him to the list of the people who weren’t coming back.

New York had taken it hard. Heroes aren’t invincible. 

The Avengers tower is pretty unscathed compared to the others around it. It had probably been fixed up faster than some of the others due to who owned it, or maybe it hadn’t been too affected in the first place. Harley bounces on the balls of his feet and darts across the road while there is a break in traffic and gets honked at for his trouble. He flips them the bird. The front entry is up a small, wide set of white concrete steps. He stares at his reflection in the dark glass of the doors and swallows. 

Right. Now he’s gotta enact the second part to his plan.

First: get to New York.

Second: get to Tony Stark.

Harley’s not nervous, per se, but he is a little worried about how far he’ll be able to go. The likelihood of Tony Stark remembering him isn’t stellar, so he’s unsure of how much he’ll be able to do today. But that’s okay. There are plans B through F, just in case security kicks his ass. 

He runs his sweaty hands down his jeans and pulls the door open.

The lobby is completely empty. Everything had been cleared off the receptionist’s desk and all the chairs removed from the waiting area. It’s dark as hell- only a few recessed ceiling lights illuminate the polished marble floor and the impressive expanse of nothing. With the tinted windows blocking out the sunlight it feels like he went underwater. His stomach sinks.

“Well, fuck.” Harley says to no one.

_“How may I help you?”_

Harley doesn’t scream, but it’s a near thing. He’d forgotten about the AI that every news station ever had done a report on, once it had leaked that Tony Stark had built a new one after what happened with Ultron. Harley wasn’t exactly expecting it to be Irish, though. Or a lady. Or installed in a building no one else is in. 

“Uh, hi?” Great, a real strong start. He clears his throat. “I’m, uh, Harley. Harley Keener. I’m here to see Tony Stark.” Can she hear him? He doesn’t think he should yell, but with all the lights and shit turned off he wonders if the same goes for the microphones that have gotta be around somewhere. Although she can clearly see him-

 _“Boss isn’t currently taking appointments.”_ The voice informs him smoothly. Harley frowns and shoves his hands into his hoodie. Arguing with a bodiless voice is not part of plan A. 

“I don’t have an appointment.” He pauses, then adds, “It’s not business related. It’s personal, I guess.”

The voice doesn’t say anything, and Harley has never been comfortable with silence. “He broke into my garage once when I was like, 10, and gave me a flash grenade to deal with bullies and also almost got me killed, so I figured he could at least, like, talk to me-“ His rambling cuts off when the elevator along the far right wall lights up and opens smoothly. 

_“He’ll be awaiting your arrival in the penthouse.”_

Jaw slack, Harley looks back at the front door and then hurries to the waiting elevator. It’s hard to keep his thoughts straight as the car rises smoothly upward. He thinks of all the things he wants to say, all the anger that had been building in the past months, thinks of the way Tony’s hands had shaken back in 2013 when Harley wouldn’t shut up about space. Tony can do something. He can fix it. Maybe he just needs someone to push him in the right direction, inspire him-

His thoughts derail as soon as the elevator opens quietly and Harley gets his first glimpse at Tony Stark.

He’s standing by an empty bar surrounded by half packed boxes. The warm overhead lights accentuate the shadows under his eyes and make him seem much older than he is. Harley thinks he looks almost exactly the way he did when they first met- tired, a little bruised up, and surrounded by junk.

Tony hasn’t seen him yet. He’s staring hard at whatever he’s holding, maybe a plaque or a picture frame, his face tense and pensive. Tony looks up and over, as if he can hear Harley thinking, and his face goes blank and incredibly pale. Like he sees a ghost. 

It’s gone an instant later. Harley opens his mouth to say- well, he doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but he’s gotta say something, so what comes out is, “Love what you’ve done with the place. The minimalism really makes it feel warm and cozy.”

Tony sets the picture or whatever face down on the bar and grins. “Harley Keener. How the hell did you get here?”

“Uh,” Harley points up, “Your ceiling told me it was okay?” He’s relieved that Tony remembers him; it settles an anxiety he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. Harley relaxes more into himself and remembers his plan.

“I mean what are you doing in New York?” Tony crosses his arms against his chest. He’s wearing a faded gray t shirt and what look like dress pants, while a white button-up and tie lay discarded on the floor. His stance is open despite his crossed arms, so Harley takes that as an invitation to come closer.

“Came to see you,” Harley says casually. He reaches out to look at one of the bottles on the top shelf behind the bar and reads the label. It’s completely unfamiliar to him, so it must be good shit. He nods approvingly and puts it back. “Wanted to see what I could do to help.”

Tony turns around and stares at him, looking more than a little confused. Harley raises his eyebrows.

“What exactly do you think I need help with?” The mechanic asks. Harley pretends he doesn’t hear in the incredulity in his voice. 

“Bringing everybody back.” The _obviously_ is implied. “What’s your plan, I wanna help.”

Something closes off in Tony’s face, but Harley doesn’t look away. He studies the way his shoulders go tense and his eyes go dark. Tony looks down at the bar top and sighs, then looks back at Harley.

“My _plan_ is to finish securing the funding for the Puerto Rico Relief Trust, get the second team of volunteers flown down to Brazil to help with the Amazon fires, meet with the Secretary of-“

“No,” Harley interrupts. He grips the edge of the bar tightly. “That’s not- that doesn’t fix the problem. What are you going to do about the other half?”

Harley hates the way Tony is looking at him, like he’s some little kid that doesn’t understand what death means. His hands ache from how hard he’s holding onto the bar. His knuckles are white.

“Kid,” Tony says finally, “I can’t do anything. No one can. It’s… there’s nothing to fix.”

“You’re a mechanic,” Harley argues, “build something to bring everyone back, or look into time travel, or do anything other than pretend it didn’t happen. You’re like the smartest person in the world, so do something about it!”

Tony’s sigh is definitely irritated this time. “What would I even build? What, in your mind, would I possibly be able to make that could suddenly materialize trillions of people?”

“I don’t know! You’re the genius, you’re supposed to figure it out!” Harley raises his voice to just below a shout and scowls at the glare Tony shoots him. 

“Okay, one? Don’t yell at me. Two, we lost. We went up against something bigger than us and we’re the ones who came out worse for wear. There are no second chances, and there are no do-overs. Case closed.”

“What did you try?” Harley demands. He exits from behind the bar and starts to pace along the wall of windows to his right. “Did you look into time travel? Alternate dimensions? Cause the stones could do that kind of stuff, right? If they could do it, there’s gotta be a way for us-”

“Kid, you’re not understanding!” Tony shouts. Harley stops pacing and stares at Tony with wide eyes. “There is _nothing to bring back._ The stones are gone, Thanos is gone, half the damn world is gone. They’re _gone,_ they’re dust. Ashes. There can’t be a magical resurrection because there isn’t anything to resurrect. I’m not a god. I can’t- I can’t bring back the dead.” 

Tony looks down at his hands, looking tired and defeated. Anger flares hot in Harley’s chest and he grips it like a lifeline.

“Yeah, but you’re all, like, best friends with a god! You’re a genius, you know aliens, and people who can do magic, and none of you are even _trying_ to find a way to fix it. If anyone could do it, it would be you, and you won’t even try. You’re just abandoning us.” Harley’s hands are shaking and he diverts his attention to the window before Tony can see how worked up he’s getting. 

Tony mutters something sharply underneath his breath; Harley glances forward and watches while Tony massages his left wrist. He looks mad. 

“None of that was enough the first time.” He looks up and locks eyes with Harley. “Do you know how big the universe is? How many billions of planets there are? You’re right, Thor is a god. But how many other gods might be walking the cosmos, huh? How many other superpowered people do you think could be out there who can do all kinds of crazy shit? Because none of them have done it. The creator of existence itself could be out there, watching, and we’re still torn apart. They’re out there, they’re smarter than us, and they haven’t done anything, because there’s nothing that they can do. It’s over.”

Woah. 

Harley blinks once and lets that set in. His argument of ‘fight magic with magic’ doesn’t seem so stable anymore, and his brain sort of shorts out for a moment as he tries to comprehend that amount of loss. The grief feels new and fresh.

Whatever Tony sees in Harley’s face makes him sigh again, and when he speaks his tone is less frustrated. “The stones were destroyed and we killed the only person who ever used all six. We lost Vision and Wanda, who were created by the Mind Stone, and Stephen Strange, who was a literal wizard in charge of protecting the Time Stone. We lost our magic, kid. There’s nothing left that could give us a foothold. We can’t go back in time.” 

Harley tries to find something to say to that, but he can’t. He swallows and grits his teeth against the burn of tears that he refuses to let fall. Instead, he wanders closer to the floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on the city. It looks peaceful. There aren’t any fires, or gaps where buildings used to be, or emergency vehicles racing through the streets down below. There’s nothing to suggest that anything is wrong. 

It’s like people are moving on and trying to forget that anything happened.

Behind him, the quiet shuffle of clothing is the only indication that Tony’s moving. Harley watches in the reflection as the man slowly walks up and gazes out the window with him. It’s probably a familiar view.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says quietly as he slides his hands into his pockets. “If there was something we could do to bring them back, we’d be doing it, I swear.” And then, as if he can read Harley’s thoughts, “Rebuilding isn’t forgetting; we’re trying to help who we can. I’m sorry that you came all the way out here, but there’s nothing I can do. I can get you a plane back to Tennessee if you want-“

“There’s nothing left for me in Tennessee,” Harley cuts him off, then winces. He hadn’t meant to say that.

The silence is thick and heavy for a moment, and then in an overly casual tone, Tony asks, “Your mom and sister, are they…?”

Harley shakes his head and carefully doesn’t look at the other man. “According to my mom’s Facebook, she’s alive, but I dunno where she’s at. Maybe Kentucky, I think we have cousins there or something. My grandma got custody of me and Lexy like five years ago, and, uh, they’re both… they’re both gone.” Harley bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and tries to clear his mind of the two newly cut gravestones resting in the middle of a crowded cemetery in the countryside.

Tony glances over at him, but Harley doesn’t turn his head to meet his eyes. The anger and the determination that had kept him going over the past few months has abandoned him completely, and Harley doesn’t want to admit that he’s known for a while now that what happened with Thanos is permanent. He feels empty. What is he supposed to hold onto now?

“Where have you been staying?” Tony asks quietly, thankfully pretending not to notice as Harley quickly wipes away a stray tear.

He shrugs, “Same place. My grandma left the house to me in her will, and the kids who had nowhere else to go were legally emancipated if they were close enough to 18.” It’s not technically a lie; the motion passed for teenagers to be declared adults if they were six months or less from turning 18, and in all the confusion after the snap, the poor courthouse lady Harley gave his fake ID to didn’t think twice about checking the birthdate before filing the paperwork. Sixteen, seventeen, same difference.

It’s quiet again. Harley doesn’t know what else to say- he came and did what he set out to do. There is no reset button. Game over. The numbness in his chest is spreading and he needs to get out before he embarrasses himself in front of Iron Man even more than he already has. 

Just as Harley is about to say something along the lines of, “oh look at the time”, Tony turns away from the window and starts sealing up the few boxes stacked by the bar. “If you want to help,” he says slowly, carefully, “we’re running most of our operations at the compound. Lot of construction, meetings, relief organization type stuff. Kind of an all hands on deck situation.” Tony turns around and meets Harley’s eyes where he’s still standing by the window. He looks serious. “You’re a smart kid, got a good head on your shoulders. You could come back upstate with me tonight if you want. Or I can have you on a plane to Rose Hill within an hour. Up to you. No pressure.”

Harley stares, mouth slightly open. He thinks about the empty shoebox of a house his grandma owned, which legally belongs to him now. He thinks of the way the dust is settling in the two abandoned bedrooms, how it’s getting thicker each day, and no matter how loud he plays his music he can’t seem to make the place feel less empty. It’s not a home. It never will be again.

Tony’s gaze is steady and more than a little bit sad, and Harley again feels like the man is seeing a ghost as he looks at him. He gets the impression that Tony wants him to go upstate, never mind what he said about getting Harley a plane. And really, when faced with either going back to a ghost town or leaving New York with Iron Man to help the Avengers, there’s not really much to think about. Still-

“You really inviting me because you think I can help?” Harley asks, looking at the wall over Tony’s shoulder instead of his face because he’s afraid of what he might see there. He doesn’t like pity; he didn’t need it when his dad walked out, or when his mom left, or after the accident. All it does is piss him off. “You’re not just saying that because you feel bad for me? Cause I’m doing fine, man, I’m not here for myself. It’s not about me.”

“I mean, would I technically be okay without you? Yeah. But then I’d have to make my own sandwiches, cause Dummy isn’t allowed near food and Pepper said she’s not my mom, and sandwich making takes time, and in that time I could be doing important things, like saving the rainforests, and next thing you know, I’m too busy to make sandwiches. No sandwiches means no food and no food means I’ll starve, and then the rainforest won’t be saved, and all of that,” he points at Harley, “would be on you. Because you’re doubting my sincerity. So if you think you can shoulder that burden, go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

Harley’s grinning. Tony winks and grabs the picture frame still face down on the bar. He puts it in a box, tapes it shut, and slides it over by three other closed boxes. He starts to close up another box.

For months, Harley has felt like everything has been put on pause. Nothing mattered because it was just the in between time, before things went to back to normal. All summer he’d been waiting for someone to do something, for one of the Avengers to announce some crazy plan pulled straight out of a comic book that would somehow miraculously work out and restore order. He’d been thinking in terms of _when_ instead of _how._ He hadn’t really considered that there might be nothing to be done. 

“You’re getting kind of old, right?” Harley asks, just to bring himself out of his own head. “Do you need help with this stuff?”

Tony looks up, eyebrows raised in dramatic offence, and says, “You know what? I’m taking my offer back. I can find a different sandwich minion.”

Harley makes a low sympathetic noise while he picks up a box. “You had a sixty second return window, and it looks like you missed it. It’s too late to return me.”

“Not even with a receipt?” 

“Not even with a receipt.” Harley sets the box down next to the elevator and heads back for another one. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

…

The Avengers compound is enormous. 

It takes the better part of two days for Harley to mentally figure the place out. He was given a map, but it’s way more fun looking around by himself. There were a few instances where Harley encountered a door that wouldn’t open, and one time he wasn’t allowed to press the 4th floor button in the elevator. He didn’t need to be on the 4th floor or anything, he was just running his hands over every knob he saw to try to get FRIDAY to tell him to stop, but that button refused to light up. It was back to normal the next day.

There hasn’t been much happening, which is sort of a bummer. Tony had briefly introduced him to Steve Rogers (holy shit) and later a very tired looking Bruce Banner. Harley hasn’t seen either of them since. 

Harley glances at his watch and turns his aimless steps towards his room. The empty halls feel like a mix of residential and professional; Harley hasn’t decided whether he should take his shoes off or not. He doesn’t want to be thought of as that weird kid who just showed up one day and doesn’t wear shoes.

Not that there would be anyone around to see him. It’s a few minutes after three in the evening on Friday, which, according to Tony, is when all of the agents and department heads meet to discuss global developments over the past week. Harley wonders what else is going wrong in the world.

Harley steps into his room and locks the door behind him. It’s a nice room, painted a cool gray to match the plush carpet, and the bed is _king sized._ It’s still pretty bare; Harley hasn’t had much chance to decorate yet. Tony had given him a heavy metal credit card and told him, half joking, “Don’t try to max it out because you can’t. I don’t want to find out I bought another baseball team, got it?”

There’s an empty notebook sitting on the desk. Harley throws himself into the plush desk chair and slowly spins himself around. 

“FRIDAY?” he calls thoughtfully, fingers steepled in front of him. “What do we know about infinity stones?”

Turns out, they know a lot.

See, here’s the thing- Harley is stubborn. He’s been stubborn since the day he was born, when he refused to take his first breath and the nurses had to spend several frantic minutes clearing his airway and rubbing his back.

He doesn’t let anyone dictate what he can and can’t do. So when Tony says to stop asking about the stones and reversing the snap, Harley has a hard time wanting to listen.

He spends the next two hours squinting at his phone and taking messy notes. FRIDAY was kind enough to download some of the info onto his phone, but it doesn’t have enough storage for everything. He adds ‘buy a computer’ to his crumpled to-do list. Right underneath ‘bring ppl back to life’.

He should probably switch that around.

Harley lets the pen fall from between his numb fingers. He’s several pages deep in the notebook and his phone just dropped to 10% battery. All that, and he still feels like he knows nothing. 

There’s just _so much_ to keep track of. Some of the stones spent decades in the same place, and then shifted several locations over a year or two. The only information logged by FRIDAY has come from the mouths of those who have been directly involved. There’s information missing everywhere, and Harley can’t google what he wants to know because _no one else knows it._ There’s a ton about the mind stone, which would be great, except a lot of it is complicated clusters of equations and properties he is lightyears from understanding. At least he can google theories and mathematics. He can’t search ‘what the fuck is a soul stone’ and expect to get responses from people who aren’t stoners.

There’s a knock at the door. Harley flips his notebook shut and spins to face it. “Come in!”

Tony walks through the door, dressed in a dark suit. He lowers his sunglasses and looks around the boring room. 

“Wow, you look like you’re having a blast in here.” Tony drawls. “Should I have specified that I can afford same-day shipping? Being rich means you never have to wait for anything.”

“I haven’t gotten anything yet,” Harley says, standing and stretching. His back makes an unpleasant crack that they both wince at. “I’ll get some stuff tonight.”

“You should, it looks like a prison in here.”

“Didn’t you design the building?”

Tony makes a face. “Not all of it. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Dinner’s ready so let’s go before they decide to start without us.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “We’ve got company.”

Last night had been the first night Harley spent at the compound. Dinner was pizza that they mowed through together before Tony showed him to his new room and retired for the night. He figures Pepper is joining them, even though he’s yet to meet her. Harley wonders how many people Tony told about bringing a teenager to the training facility. He wonders what he’s even doing there.

Harley lifts an eyebrow. “Who is it?”

A small smile twitches at Tony’s mouth. “Nobody important… just the rest of the Avengers. Well, not the ones in space, but everyone that was earthside.”

A small, disbelieving thrill races through Harley before he can push it down. He’s not one to get starstuck, but Thor is a _god._ They’re the coolest motherfuckers out there.

And Harley is going to eat dinner with them.

“Sweet,” he settles on saying. His voice is steadier than he thought it would be. _Score._

A snort. “Yeah, you think that now.”

Despite the warning, Harley is still surprised to turn into the polished, open kitchen and see people gathered there. They round the corner just in time to see Captain America brandish a fork against Black Widow, who seems to be trying to pluck something off Steve’s plate.

“I will take you down,” he tells her seriously. 

A small laugh escapes Harley, and the attention turns to them.

The pleasantries are a little awkward. Harley is acutely aware that while it doesn’t seem like they mind his presence, they’re all wondering who he is and what he’s doing there. Harley takes a seat next to Tony, across from Bruce. Thor and Hawkeye are also there, but they’re quieter than the others.

It’s quiet for a moment as everyone tucks into their food until Natasha tilts her head at him curiously and asks, “So where did you come from?”

Harley, who had just shoved a large bite of garlic bread into his mouth in an attempt to distract himself from the awkwardness, tries not to choke and chews as fast as he can. “Uh,” he manages, “Tennessee?”

“Tennessee,” she repeats slowly. 

“Yeah,” Harley swallows and takes a small drink. “Tony broke into my garage to steal my mom’s tools when I was 10 so I threatened to shoot him with a potato gun. I ended up helping him with some of that Mandarin stuff so he gave me a flash bang as a thank you.” That gets him a few surprised looks. Harley can’t quit running his mouth. “Anyway, my whole family is dead now so I came to New York to yell at him about it.”

There’s a heavy moment of silence. Harley’s face is steadily growing red. He takes a bite of spaghetti and avoids eye contact.

“I don’t know if I can handle two of them,” Clint says eventually, from down the table. Natasha ducks her head and smiles in amusement. 

“You gave a child a flash bang?” Steve asks incredulously, staring at Tony.

“Don’t look at me like that! He was getting bullied, okay, and I didn’t wanna just leave him with nothing-”

_“You gave him a flash bang to use on other children?”_

“I need to hear this story,” Natasha says expectantly. Harley finds himself the center of attention again, but this time it’s more comfortable. Even Thor looks interested.

As Tony starts at the beginning, something starts to slowly relax in Harley’s chest. The past few months of isolation have affected him more than he thought, and being in the presence of this many people, sharing a meal and telling stories, takes a little of the hollowness away.

It’s not much, but it’s a start, and he figures he’s about due for a new one. 

…

There’s a talking raccoon in the front yard.

Harley has heard about Rocket, but he’d been in space when Harley arrived, and no one knew when he would be back. Still, seeing pictures of a raccoon wearing clothing and ammo belts and walking like a person is different than seeing it in real life.

He watches as Tony and Steve head out to meet Rocket at the base of the ship he landed on the grass. There’s a blue woman who looks like she’s half metal, and Harley recognizes her as Nebula from the files FRIDAY put on his computer. 

Rocket leaves Nebula to talk to Tony and Steve by herself and starts up the drive. Once he’s near enough, Harley falls into step with him.

“Who the hell are you?” Rocket grunts as he adjusts the bag hanging from his shoulder.

“Harley.”

“Uh huh. You a superkid or something?”

“Nope. Just a regular kid.” Harley glances down at the raccoon and gathers his nerve. He looks back, but the others are still busy talking at the ship. Now is as good a time as any. “Listen, man, I know we just met, but I need to talk to you.”

“Not in the mood, kid. Space ain’t pretty right now and I gotta make my repairs before I can get drunk.” 

“I just need a couple of minutes, nothing crazy-”

“I said _buzz off.”_ Rocket glares up at him and pointedly walks faster. Harley pushes down the impulse to say something stupid. 

“Fine,” he mutters lowly. Rocket drops his bag by the overhang by the front doors and turns to go back to the ship. The other three must’ve headed around back to one of the hangars, because there is no sign of them. Determination settles heavy in his gut. He goes back inside and heads straight for the kitchen.

If the rodent wants a drink, Harley will get him a drink.

The compound is a busy place. In the week and a half since Harley joined them, he’s only seen them all together twice, and that was when they gathered to brief each other over world events. They didn’t have dinner together the second time because everyone had to leave almost as soon as it concluded.

Tony has been around, but Harley is about 90% certain it’s because he doesn’t know what to do with Harley. The engineer spends a lot of time in his workshops, which is fine, because Harley has taken this time to settle into his space, but Tony hasn’t left the compound to do any type of business, which Harley knows is unusual. He feels a little bad for it, but he can’t bring himself to regret coming. Thinking about going back to Rose Hill, alone, causes his stomach to turn unpleasantly. 

Besides, Harley has work to do.

According to FRIDAY, Rocket is the only one alive who has had direct contact with the Power Stone. Most of the details were in the Power Stone’s file, but the only thing missing is how it _felt._ Harley wants to know what it was like, holding all that power. It seems like something that should be documented. He won’t let himself think that knowing will help solve the grand equation, but why not gather as much intel as possible? What could it hurt?

There’s nobody in the kitchen, which is good, because Harley heads straight for the liquor cabinet and pulls out a full bottle of whiskey. He doesn’t know much about hard liquor; every time he’s drank before he’s had cheap beer. Alcohol is expensive.

He grabs a glass tumbler, hesitates, and then grabs a second one. Holding the items close to chest so no one can see what he has, Harley marches back across the lawn to approach the ship.

Rocket isn’t anywhere to be seen, but soft scuffling noises are coming from inside. The ramp is down, and Harley stares in wonder as he walks up. He drinks in every detail of the actual, real life functioning space ship, _holy shit._ How the hell did he end up here? 

Rocket is sitting on the ground next to a panel of exposed wiring. Tools are spread out around him and a pair of welding goggles rest on his furry head. Before he can say anything, Harley plops himself down across from him and pours a decent amount of whiskey into each glass. 

“Brought you a drink,” he says conversationally. 

Rocket looks at him, then the glass, then the bottle. After a second he grunts out a ‘hmm’ and takes the glass closest to him, and downs the entire cup like a shot. Harley watches him and tries to throw it back the way he did, but the moment the taste hits his tongue he’s choking and spitting it back into the cup.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?”

“That’s- that’s fucking disgusting.” Harley coughs violently and wishes he had a glass of water.

“That was _terrible,_ have you never taken a shot before? That was pathetic.” Rocket demands, abandoning his tools to slam his small hand into Harley’s back. Harley shakes his head as he catches his breath.

“Never had whiskey before,” he says after he pulls it together. 

“Jesus, you’re like a baby. That’s not how you take a shot, idiot. Here,” Rocket pours a much smaller amount into his own glass and holds it up. “Don’t tilt your head back so fast,” and he exaggerates the motions as he drinks it down. “Toss that shit out of your glass,” Rocket tells Harley, and he pours a small amount into both of their empty glasses once he’s back.

The taste is no better, but at least this time he’s prepared for it. It’s easier to swallow the smaller amount, and the burn makes him screw his eyes shut against it. 

Rocket barks out a laugh. “That’s better.” He refills both of their glasses again.

Getting drunk off whiskey stolen from Tony Stark seems like a bad idea, but Harley doubts the man will even notice the missing bottle, and he can spend the rest of the afternoon in his room once he gets what he needs. In other words, why the hell not?

Rocket goes back to messing with his wiring, taking occasional drinks from his tumbler. Harley drinks quietly and watches him. It looks like he’s replacing a frayed wire, and it’s boring enough work that Harley doesn’t care to ask about it. His real question is burning in his mind, getting stronger the more he drinks.

Just as he’s about to ask again, Rocket speaks up. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Harley’s eyes snap up to look at Rocket. “The Power Stone,” he says in a rush, “You were in direct contact with it, right? That’s what the Avenger’s file said, that you and the rest of your crew were in direct contact.”

To Harley’s relief, the question doesn’t seem to bother the raccoon. He was afraid Rocket would clam up like Tony does. 

“Technically Quill was the one holding it, and the rest of us held onto him or each other. But yeah, I was there.”

His heartbeat thumps loudly in his ears. “What did it feel like?”

Rocket shoots back the rest of his drink and pours another. Harley copies him. 

“It felt like I was being pulled apart,” Rocket says lowly. “Like I was… being dragged into separate spaces. There were these waves moving through everything, like the world was made out of layers that were being pulled apart, and pulling us apart with it. Hurt like a bitch.”

“What do you mean, layers?” Harley squints at him. Either the raccoon is talking complete nonsense or Harley is losing the ability to understand English. Could be a bit of both. 

“I don’t fuckin’ know, it was a long time ago. There were places alongside ours, or on top of, or part of, I don’t know. There were other places that are with ours and they were being split apart.” He takes another shot. The bottle is halfway empty, and the light from outside is rapidly fading to dark.

Harley finishes his drink and puts the glass to the side. He wants something to click inside his head, to tell him that what Rocket said was important, that it can fix something. All it sounds like is a lot of confusion.

“Why are you asking about the stones, kid?” Rocket ventures after a moment. He sounds tired.

“I’m just trying to understand what happened,” Harley confesses quietly. The words fall easily from his mouth. “I always thought there would be a way to go back to the way things were.”

Footsteps ring out, and before either of them can react, Tony is standing in the doorway staring down at both of them. Harley tries to nudge his glass behind him but instead knocks his hand into it and sends it rolling toward the front of the ship.

“Are you kidding me?” A muscle jumps in Tony’s jaw. Harley swallows nervously. He’s clearly furious. “You stole my good whiskey and got a teenager drunk?” He directs this question to Rocket, who scoffs.

“I didn’t steal shit, Stark. He wanted to bribe me into talking about the stones.” 

_“Dude,”_ Harley hisses in protest. “Did you seriously just sell me out?”

“I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret!”

“Okay, enough,” Tony interrupts. He points at Harley, “You, get up. We’re going inside.”

Harley stands and stumbles immediately. Two hands grip his shoulders and steady him while Harley blinks the static out of his eyes. He thinks he hears Tony mutter, “ridiculous,” as they head down the ramp, but he’s too focused on trying not to fall to pay much attention.

The world feels like it’s slowly tilting, but not enough to hinder his steps once he makes it to even ground. Harley pulls away from the supporting hold Tony has on him and they start toward the lights of the compound in near dark. 

“What are you doing?” Tony asks abruptly. Harley can’t read his tone of voice.

“I don’t have much else to do,” Harley finds himself saying. Fuck, that’s not what he wanted to say. “Just trying to have some fun-”

“Not about the drinking,” the man cuts in, “Though while we’re on the subject, I know you know better. I thought it was safe to assume you knew this, but you’re not allowed to pilfer my liquor and drink it with a talking raccoon. Hard stop. I had FRIDAY lock the cabinets, so good luck doing it again. I mean why are you still asking about the stones?”

Harley’s stomach drops, and he hates how that makes him feel. He doesn’t need to be scolded like some little kid. Tony isn’t his dad. Harley doesn’t owe him anything.

Except that he kind of does.

“I was just curious,” Harley mutters. He shoves his hands in his pocket and keeps his gaze fixed on the ground. Resentment burns deep in his chest. _You can’t tell me who I can talk to,_ he wants to say. For once, his filter works and he keeps the thought to himself.

“Four and a half months ago, Rocket lost everyone he cared about in the snap, so sure, let’s ask him all about it-”

“That’s not what I wanted to know!” Harley protests angrily. “I’m not a dick, I just wanted to know what the Power Stone felt like when he touched it.”

Tony grabs Harley’s shoulder and pulls him to a stop. “You can’t do this to yourself,” he says seriously. “You can’t think it’s all up to you to come up with a solution. It’ll drive you crazy, and it’s not going to help-”

“I’m not-”

“Yes you are! FRIDAY keeps a record of anyone who accesses archives on the stones.” The betrayal hurts, but it shouldn’t. She’s an AI. She was doing her job.

Still. 

To Harley’s horror, tears gather in his eyes. Thankfully it’s too dark for Tony to see them. 

With a gentler tone than before, Tony says, “It’s terrible. It’s the worst thing that will ever happen to the universe.” He places a comforting hand on Harley’s shoulder. Drinking so much was a huge mistake, because he’s having a hard time getting his emotions in check. “But we’re still here. We’re still alive. We have to move forward, because we can’t go back.”

Harley nods, and when he doesn’t respond Tony hesitantly adds, “I can get someone for you to talk to if you think-”

“ _No,_ no. It’s- I’m fine.” Harley rubs his face and walks forward as if he can outpace the conversation. Tony matches his stride easily. “It’s all good, I just haven’t had much to do. You- you said you brought me here so I can help, but all I’ve been doing is sitting around doing nothing.”

“And drinking with a raccoon.” Tony adds.

“And drinking with a raccoon.” Harley agrees with a small laugh. 

“You’re right,” Tony says, to Harley’s surprise. They pass into the lobby of the compound, heading toward the residential wings, and Harley hopes there are no signs of tears on his face. “I wanted to give you some time to get comfortable, but I should’ve asked.

“There’s a training facility further upstate. We had a jet that was coming in for a landing when the pilot disappeared, and the crash destroyed most of the building. Bruce and I had some equipment in a lab underground, and I’m thinking it should be salvageable. We’re taking a quinjet out day after tomorrow to check it out. Want to tag along?”

Maybe it’s the alcohol, but suddenly having something to look forward to brightens Harley’s outlook almost immediately. “Hell yeah,” he says. With a blink, he realizes he’s at the door to his room. 

“Good.” Tony hesitates, like there’s something he wants to say, before he settles on, “Get some sleep. And I’m serious, no underage drinking. I’ll make Steve put on his Captain voice if I have to.”

The PSAs his whole school had to watch come to mind, and he laughs loudly. Tony rolls his eyes and walks away while talking to himself under his breath. 

Harley fumbles his way into his room, clumsily navigates through all the Amazon boxes he’s in the process of opening, and collapses into bed. The events of the day swirl around in his brain and blur into one big block of nonsense.

When he falls asleep, Harley dreams of a golden glove, six bright swirling colors, and the world tearing itself into infinite overlapping layers.


End file.
